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Future state of analytics in devices and gaming

Analytics capabilities must rapidly evolve to keep up with the increasingly rich data landscape of video gaming.

Overview

The gaming industry is massive, quickly passing film and TV. This is a huge market, with much to be learned about the rationales and behaviors of its gaming base. At the center of this understanding is analytics—and the future of analytics in the gaming world has never been more exciting.

Key Findings

The video game industry has some of the richest customer data available anywhere. Making sense of it all requires broad and thoughtful applications of analytics and machine-learning.

Gamers expect to play their games whenever, wherever and with whomever they want.

80% of gamers report playing games on more than one device. Connecting gamers across devices creates richer experiences and better data streams.

Demographic segmentation is insufficient. Multi-dimensional customer models are required to understand the modern gamer.

Traditional segmentation no longer captures a deep enough view of the gamer. No gender dominates the gaming world. 46% of gamers are women, and everyone plays everything.

Social influencers are invaluable gateways to the community.

Enthusiastic fan bases bring more customers to the platform in a positively reinforcing growth cycle. These influencers can be reliably identified, and video game companies should seek out and engage these fans.

Recommendations

To thrive in a rapidly changing and growing market, video game companies must capture the right data and build a culture of analytics-driven decision-making.

Capture the right data. Before analysis begins, companies should address issues around collection, latency, data fidelity and customer trust.

Optimize every facet of business operations with analytics. Forecasting, capacity planning, migration, marketing mix, community management and more can all be informed and driven by analytics.

Focus on relationships first, monetization second. Game companies need to prioritize deep reciprocal community relationships over monetization. Orienting the business around customer lifetime value rather than revenue is a good first step.